By Henry J. Stern
September 8, 2005
For us, this is the third and last day of immersion in Katrina. As
with 9/11, the story of the hurricane and the flood will take years to unfold
fully. As a site primarily devoted to the honest and efficient government
of the City of New York, we must return to our knitting, especially with
municipal elections fast approaching. We will comment on the storm
and its aftermath from time to time, maybe even tomorrow.
Your responses on this issue now exceed one hundred ten, you can find them on
Starblog. Go toour home page,
www.nycivic.org,
and press the appropriate link. Some of your letters posted on the
blog include startling facts of which most of us were unaware.
1) So far unanswered and largely unasked are questions of who will pay the
hundreds of billions of dollars in economic costs that will follow the disaster.
The costs include recovery of the bodies and the burial of the dead, medical
expenses of the injured, property reconstruction for homes and businesses
damaged by the storm and the flood, compensation for the survivors of the
victims, loss of income, pain and suffering, etc. etc.
The Bush administration and Congress set a precedent in the wake of 9/11/2001
by compensating the victims' relatives. The Clinton administration
did not do that after the Oklahoma City bombing of a Federal office building
in 1995, where the victims were largely low-level government employees and
their children in day care.
We wonder what standard the Feds will follow ten years after the Oklahoma
bombing, the work of home-grown terrorists, timed for the second anniversary
of the Branch Davidians' self-destruction by fire in Waco, Texas, in April
1993. (The largest of these mass tragedies, conducted under the auspices
of religious fanatics, was the suicide of over 900 people, largely Americans,
in Jonestown, Guyana, which took place in November 1978. A smaller,
but more exotic, incident took place in California in 1997, when 39 members
of the Heaven's Gate cult, wearing identical new Nike sneakers, took poison
in the expectation that they would exit their human vehicles and rise to
join the Hale-Bopp comet, then passing nearby.) These stories are recalled,
in part, to show there are no bounds on human folly, and perhaps we should
have sympathy for the bunglers of New Orleans. On the other hand, the
wacko (not Waco) cultists of Jonestown not only killed themselves, but Congressman
Leo Ryan of San Francisco, and, most unforgivably, their children.
If the Federal government assumes responsibility for all costs deriving from
the flood, will that apply to other possible calamities, such as The Big
One on the San Andreas Fault in California, or a terrorist attack on a large
American city? How much of the loss should be shifted from individuals
killed or injured to the general public? How many tragedies can the
federal fisc absorb, especially if there are fewer people remaining to pay
taxes?
We have no answers to these questions. We want to do whatever we can
to help disaster victims. But what precedents would be set? What
future demands are likely to be assumed?
One aspect of the question of responsibility is whether there was negligence
or misconduct in the failure to order an early evacuation, or to strengthen
the levee, or to allow construction below sea level, or to straighten the
Mississippi River so its waters rushed into the delta. What did the
Department of Homeland Security do in the days before the storm? Did
they listen to the radio and watch TV, which made very clear what was about
to happen? Did they read the disaster plans which had been prepared
in advance, at some cost, for such a contingency?
2) An irony we cannot help but observe is the contrast between the backgrounds
of the two Federal officials with direct responsibility in this area.
Michael Brown,
the consummate mediocrity, Oklahoma City University Law School, couldn't
make a living as a lawyer in Oklahoma or Colorado, fired as supervisor of
judges at horse shows, good ol' boy and longtime buddy of
Joe Allbaugh, a major money man for the President.
Michael Chertoff,
Harvard College, 1975, magna cum laude; Harvard Law School, 1978, magna cum
laude; law clerk to Mr. Justice William J. Brennan, 1979 to 1980, later United
States Attorney for New Jersey, and Judge of the United States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit, who resigned a lifetime position to accept President
Bush's offer to become the second Secretary of Homeland Security. (Governor
Tom Ridge was the first.)
But did the genius do any better than the dope?
3) We called Doug Blonsky, president of the Central Park Conservancy, to
find out what they did when they heard that a storm was on the way.
We learned this: 1) They make certain all their vehicles are filled
with fuel. 2) They bring major pieces of equipment to higher ground,
because the 79th Street yard could flood. 3) They keep their own forestry
crew in the park, so they will be on hand in case of fallen trees. 4)
They sharpen the blades on the saws, in anticipation of their use during
and after the storm. 5) They check the catchbasins to see that none
is clogged. 6) They lower the water level of the lakes in Central Park,
so that a heavy rainstorm will not lead to flooding.
We have a recommendation for a new Secretary of Homeland Security, a man who is both smart and practical.
Today's Katrina Links: Editorials, Columns, Op-eds
Here are the links we promised you to today's editorials and columns on Katrina:
THE NEW YORK TIMES,
Editorial: Bring Out Your Pork
Column:
Bob Herbert- No Strangers to the Blue
Column:
David Brooks- Katrina's Silver Lining
Op-ed:
Simon Winchester- Before the Flood
Op-Ed:
Clark Kent Ervin- No Quick Fixes
DAILY NEWS
Column:
Stanley Crouch- A Failure of Vision. Bodies of New Orleans are the tragic result of hands-off policies.
NEW YORK POST
Column:
Robert D. Novak- Plague of Lawyers, Republican rage at FEMA's fatal fumbles
Column:
Maggie Gallagher- Making Sense of Horror
NEWSDAY
Editorial: Some Good From Katrina- Tax cuts for the wealthy put on hold as post-hurricane politics play out.
Column:
Patrick Moore- Storm Waters Dry Up Drugs. Without programs to treat addiction, it's no wonder that the social fabric is torn to shreds.
Column:
James P. Pinkerton-
Plenty of Hurricane Blame to Go Around. We've seen the pictures of
school buses, which could have evacuated residents, sitting forlornly flooded
in a parking lot.
Column:
Sheryl McCarthy- Katrina Highlights Bush's Incompetence. This time he couldn't hide behind trumped-up intelligence.
THE NEW YORK SUN
Column:
R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.- Katrina Tests Limits of Government
Column:
Anne Applebaum- Planning for the Next New Orleans
Op-Ed:
Lawrence Kudlow- Not That ''70s Show
Op-Ed:
John Stossel- In Praise of Price-Gouging
#252 9.8.05 1142wds
9.9.05 90 more.